Games that receive a lot of undeserved flak

Risen- the game got bad reviews due to most reviewers trying to rush through what is suppose to be a long story where your character develops with you, but due to it being slow, people would get fed up with the small bugs that wouldn't be too annoying if you didn't rush, as well as the fact that most people would get it for Xbox 360, which had more bugs and looked a lot worse than the PC version. 
 
Gothic 3- game got a lot of flank from both critics and gothic fans, to the point that they barley mention it, or make sure to remind people that they like gothic, but not the third one. Though if they actually took the 5 minutes to install the community patch, you can clearly see that the game has the epic gothic story nonetheless, played it, and can proudly say it is in my top 20.

" @InTheEnd said:

" Most wouldn't say Halo is bad but just mind numbingly average. "

great example of the Halo hate, thank you. "

" @DoctorOptimist:  My point exactly =P Maybe not everyone liked them, but they were pretty great games nonetheless, lots of things to do and see. "

Brutal Legend: Put that shit on easy and the battles are not bad at all. Great fun game especially if you like metal.
 
FF13: Don't get me started on how great this game is :D

I like Halo, but ODST was garbage IMO. 

" Crysis (it's really damn fun,reminds me of a better looking Half-life 2). "

Basically any games that are popular, people will hate it for no reason just because it's popular
Sure some people just don't care for that game, but too many hate on games like Halo and GTAIV just cause

" @Kibblez said:

" GTAIV "

agreed "

Some of the complains folk had about GTAIV just astounded me. Saying that the driving was poor and that the game lacked anything to really do. I can understand some complaints like how it started to drag on towards the end, but I played the game for a good 40+ hours before finishing the story and loved 95% of it. Plus the multiplayer is fun as a mess around, but people expected it to be a competitive heavyweight like COD and Halo when I don't think it was ever supposed to be. I'm not sure any game with lock-on could be, but it was a lot of fun to piss about in with friends.

Well for me one of the games I think got too much flack was Lost Planet 2. Sure it may have its own flaws especially when waiting to join an online game but its still a decent shooter with a very fun coop mode. 

I agree with you about FFXIII, the game looked fantastic and played great. Totally did not deserve the bad mouthing it got.

GTA IV's driving mechanics where a bit flawed but it didint render it unplayable.

You and me are on the same team.

That was a little hit and miss with me. I don't entirely agree.

People seem to rip on Guild Wars all the time, but it got 89 on Metacritic.

Prince of Persia: Warrior Within

Dude - Halo 3 sucks. All the halos are awesome but Halo '3' sucks. ODST is quite awesome (unless you already bought Halo 3 & map packs). 
 Halo Reach will be really cool, except I've become a XBOX hater lately and don't want to buy another XBOX product, so I guess I'll be crying myself to sleep while everyone else basks in Reach's awesomeness. 
 
When you wrote "The Dig", I read "Dig Dug", man I love Dig Dug. Nice Post BTW

It may or may not have been mentioned, but I feel like GTA 4 has gotten way too much grief at times. I've defended it probably a few times over the summer. People don't seem to remember the near unanimous perfect scores and game of the year awards. That game was--and still is--badass.

" Dude - Halo 3 sucks. All the halos are awesome but Halo '3' sucks. ODST is quite awesome (unless you already bought Halo 3 & map packs). 
 Halo Reach will be really cool, except I've become a XBOX hater lately and don't want to buy another XBOX product, so I guess I'll be crying myself to sleep while everyone else basks in Reach's awesomeness. 
 
When you wrote "The Dig", I read "Dig Dug", man I love Dig Dug. Nice Post BTW "

World of Warcraft seems to get a lot of hate these days, and for no good reason.

Pretty much any popular console exclusive. I remember a topic on this forum a couple of months ago where a PS3 owner decided to get a 360 and wanted to know what games to get, but immediately stated he didn't want Gears of War or Halo games without giving a reason. I got the feeling he hadn't played either, but was put off the games either by his own bias or just from the tons of flack those games get in the PS3 circles.

Halo just gets flak from idiots that don't understand the difference between a bad game and a playstyle they don't like, other than that you're just going to get a lot of people on here telling you that you're wrong.

God Hand, if you like good games.

Haters gonna Hate?
I thought FF12 was horrible and the characters were worse, Vaan also has quite possibly the worst voice in the history of ever.  This might sound like an exaggeration but trust me the amount of boredom that FF12 inspired in me was near violent, that game is and was absolute crap.
 
Also i think people hate on Warrior Within and The Two Thrones to much, go back and just TRY to play The Sands of Time. The combat is absolutely atrocious and the later two games are 1000x times better.
 
I loved the Sands of Time(Passed it about 5 times when i was younger) but i made it through 75% of it and i had to stop, the combat is insanely simple and easy but they make you kill about 20 enemies over and over they just keep coming. 
The Combat in the later 2 games was much better, the platforming a a bit more complicated, the fact that Warrior Within was in a way non-linear, the Variety(If even just a little) that Two Thrones included such as Stealth Kills, the Chariot sequences, the Event kills for Bosses. I am not saying they were perfect or that some of the additions were for the better but when people say that Sands of Time was good and just ignore the others it confuses me because Sands of Time isn't as good as they think or say it is.  
I don't mean to say that Sands of Time is a bad game, it was acceptable for the time but the fact that Warrior Within and The Two Thrones are much better yet they are ignored and deemed inferior just sucks.
 
Also Halo: ODST 
That game reminded me why i love halo, its just such a blast to play with friends and that firefight mode? The most fun i have had playing a videogame in a long time.

Far Cry 2 is a really good game, I don't understand the hate it gets. Some of the side missions do get pretty repetitive but the main missions are solid and good fun and the ending does suck but apart from that it's a good game. The shooting is solid, the driving is fine, graphics excellent, AI is challenging and it's a decent length too. 

" @Doctorchimp:   Do us a favor and gtfo. thanks.  My entire gripe with gamers is that they have these insane expectations of games, or come up with things it should or should not do on the bloody spot. Let games be games, don't worry so much, and this coming from a huge fan of all things gaming.  That said I have no clue why people hated Sonic Adventure Battle 2 on the NGC, I bloody loved it, was better then most other games out at the time and great fun. "

I agree with Crysis and Halo and definitely GTA IV as well.  I didn't really like Crono Cross, but I don't really like JRPGs other than Chrono Trigger anyway...
 
I would add Starcraft II, ahaha I know it's well received but the haters love to rag on the lack of LAN support and a couple of other things that don't really bother most of us.  I've noticed a trend lately in gaming journalism in which one writer will write something that may be perceived counter-trend which then becomes trendy to write about in every review.  Best example is probably Bioshock 2 where one writer wrote an article long before it came out about how he felt the story of Bioshock was complete in the first game and he didn't see the need for a sequel.  I'm sure everyone's familiar with that old chestnut by now. 

" @Skytylz: However the people who don't like Halo think that instead of hate. "

Halo Franchise: *sigh* Yup, THAT franchise. It's been attacked by a lot of assholes and idiots (Like 98.99% of Gametrailers.com's userbase) on the net. I have played many bad games in my life, and the Halo series are not one of them and nor are they close. The first Halo was an amazing console FPS, that in my opinion, outdid many of the PC offerings. The sequels weren't as good, but they're still solid games and don't deserve flak either. Even ODST was good game despite it being an overpriced expansion pack. Yes, the Halo fanboys are annoying (Though they're a dying breed right now), but the Halo haters are even worse.

"

" @DoctorOptimist said:

Halo Franchise: *sigh* Yup, THAT franchise. It's been attacked by a lot of assholes and idiots (Like 98.99% of Gametrailers.com's userbase) on the net. I have played many bad games in my life, and the Halo series are not one of them and nor are they close. The first Halo was an amazing console FPS, that in my opinion, outdid many of the PC offerings. The sequels weren't as good, but they're still solid games and don't deserve flak either. Even ODST was good game despite it being an overpriced expansion pack. Yes, the Halo fanboys are annoying (Though they're a dying breed right now), but the Halo haters are even worse.

"

Not to start shit, but what exactly did Halo do that out did PC offerings? I feel that Halo:CE was nothing more than a PC game transfered to console. For Console, the game sold and people loved it. Then the ported it to PC.... and that well did ...well. "

I've played nothing there but the Halo games, and I agree with them getting a lot of unnecessary disrespect.
 
I'd also like to add Super Mario Sunshine, which I still think is a better game than Mario Galaxy. Plus I agree that RE5 is a much better game than it's given credit for.

I'm actually surprised at the amount of awful reviews their were towards the original Assassin's Creed. Considering is was a step in a good direction in terms of building traversal, the backlash was, in my opinion, mostly due to the copious amounts of hype it got. The combat system is it's only real glare, though you can also say the optional repetitive side quests were too and people bashed the hell out of it. Come 'round to Assassin's Creed 2 and the only real thing that's drastically changed is the side jobs and it's a huge success. They did add shops and inventory, but the combat was still a glare; Go figure?
 
I have to say Final Fantasy 11 was a great, well thought out game, yet so many people hated it and hated on it.. I couldn't understand the hate towards this game other than that it wasn't what people were expecting. The shear fact that it was an MMO and Final Fantasy game maybe contributed towards this, because you were either unwilling to pay monthly or weren't a final fantasy fan and hate on the franchise as it is. That being said, I did play WoW during my FFXI experience and put it down almost instantly. Something about FFXI kept me coming back and kept my interest in a mature setting. I feel WoW graphics make the game less interesting considering the content it explores. But that's Blizzard's style and I'm not really into it.
 
What really shocked me was how badly Final Fantasy 12, was recieved. For a game that took the greatest part of FFXI and put it in an offline game (Free roam = no monotonous random battles) which turn it into less of a JRPG. I have to say I was thoroughly amazed at it's reception. Sure the characters were cookie cutter square characters, but at least they tried going in a newer direction with a tradition Final Fantasy title.  Compare the combat system to that of Dragon Age or Final Fantasy 13 and see the resemblance. The former was a renowned game and the latter was only hailed for having a good combat system. However, both games roots tie back to FFXII. Why so badly received then?

@Glak

" Basically any games that are popular, people will hate it for no reason just because it's popular Sure some people just don't care for that game, but too many hate on games like Halo and GTAIV just cause "

It's great we have massive expectations for games these days.
 
Why would any consumer want to settle with a product that's not good? 
 
We can't be expected to go around and respect every single game if they are NOT good games.

I had a lot of fun with ODST. When you consider Vice City was originally an expansion pack too, that excuse falls flat.

The halo franchise def, MW2, Assassin's Creed 1, and there was one more I can't remember now..

Gotta be Halo 3. Never has such a great franchise had to put up with so many snobs shitting on it.

Big Rigs

I agree 100% with Crysis being mentioned. Though it was a little oddly paced due to the large levels in the game, I have to admit playing on the hardest difficulty then planning when to use stealth or come out guns blazing was an exhilarating experience. Plus adding that with the Counter-Strike-ish gameplay in the multiplayer was a lot of fun. I'm really looking forward to Crysis 2 if they can keep that rush going and more consistent. 
 
Battlefield 2142 Is one of these games. I first got into the series with 2142 and had a blast with it. Soon found that a bunch of people said that Battlefield 2 was many times better...just because. So I bought it, played it for 4 hours, uninstalled it, and never touched it again. Something about it just did not scratch the itch that 2142 did and, to this day, still argue it was a better game.